


Twelve days of Christmas

by Krystalmatsumiya



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, Wizard courtship, Yule
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-05
Updated: 2019-12-10
Packaged: 2021-02-24 16:41:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21681133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Krystalmatsumiya/pseuds/Krystalmatsumiya
Summary: Its Christmas in Hogwarts and someone has decided to court Harry Potter with the traditional twelve days of Christmas
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 20
Kudos: 108





	1. First day of Christmas

On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me...

  
“A pear tree?” Harry Potter frowned as he sat at the Gryffindor table on a cold and wet December morning. The elves had just sent the food up from the kitchen and the mail had arrived with a large bulky package dressed in cheerful red and green paper. The owl that had brought it was unfamiliar but he had opened it easily enough surprised to find a glass box containing a miniature pear tree dressed with pretty ribbons. The base of the pot was white and blue fine bone China with the serpent Dragon flying around the base. “Who would send me a pear tree?” 

  
“Harry...Are there any partridges on that tree?” Hermione asked softly sounding very close to squeaking with excitement like she would in class when she knew an answer to a question and nobody else did. 

  
“What? I dunno what do they look like?” 

  
“Birds, mate...” Ron muttered a mouthful of bacon as he looked at the tree in front of his friend. His eyes were wide showing his bright blue pupils and Harry frowned looking at the tree again. It seemed even Ron knew something about the tree when he didn’t. After a moment of searching Harry found it. A small brown bird with gold touches on its beak and wings. 

  
“Yeah, there’s a sort of pot bird in the tree...Any chance one of you wants to tell me what it is?”

  
“It’s a courtship mate!” Ron spluttered showering him with bacon before Hermione could even speak and Harry noticed that that didn’t please their female friend. Surprisingly though Ron seemed to know a lot about the subject. “It’s a pure blood thing, mate, an heir will get it in his head that he likes some girl he sees and then thinks he can’t go up and talk to her like a normal bloke so instead he gives her presents. You know, twelve presents for the twelve days of Yule. It’s an ancient thing, not been done in years...” 

  
“You may have failed to notice, Ron, but I’m not a girl” Harry grumbled looking around the hall feeling as though everyone was looking at him. He supposed that he should be glad that a lot of students had already gone home for the winter. 

  
“No, but you’re sort of pretty as one...I mean to some guys...” To everyone close to them at the table they were shocked to hear that muffled confession coming from the mouth of the red head. Harry included. He had been told that he had improved over the year, he had finally gone to the mediwitch and had been given a series of potions to combat the malnutrition that he had suffered. As a result, he had grown a few inches and had filled into his body. With the potions his eyesight had improved and he no longer needed to wear his glasses. In the summer he had asked Mrs Weasley to teach him some spells to mend and fix Dudley’s cast offs but he still didn’t understand why he was suddenly being called pretty. 

  
“That still doesn’t mean I should be given courtship presents or whatever. How do I stop this?”

  
“You don’t mate, and you don’t want to...The first of the presents only get sent if you are the senders true love...” 

  
“Like in the song Harry...On the first day of Christmas my true love sent to me...” Hermione put in quickly very glad that she had been able to say something and Harry opened his mouth again but stared at the tree before speaking;

  
“So you...You are telling me...That my one true love is a pure blood who is gonna send me crazy gifts like this for 12 days? Can’t I just tell him no?

  
“Not until the end, you won’t know who it is until then...” 

  
“Oh great! I can’t even have a normal Christmas!” 


	2. Chapter 2

On the Second day of Christmas my true love gave to me...

  
“Two turtle doves” Harry muttered his eyes widening as he started at the birds in the cage. They were admittedly very pretty birds to say that they were closely related to the common pigeon. Their bodies were a soft grey that almost appeared to be blue while their wings and necks were speckled with browns. Their eyes were watchful blinking up at him from the ornate white cage they were in. They cooed in a gentle way that Harry found almost soothing but he had absolutely no idea what he was going to do with them. Hedwig wouldn’t like sharing the smallest bedroom with two more feathered friends and that was even if the Dursley’s didn’t flip at the very sight of them. 

  
“They have clearly been hand-reared” Seamus said with a sort of happy lilt looking the birds up and down as he came over from his bed. The Irish wizard had been getting ready to head home for christmas and he, like most of the other wizarding raised, had been more impressed than anything with the courtship. Harry had found that surprising but given that the sender was meant to be his true love he supposed it made sense for them. Harry still wasn’t sold on that, or any of it for that matter, but he was prepared to see it through till the end. The pear tree was sat on his bedside table and he had found that the pears gave off a shimmery glow at night that he rather liked but livestock was a little too far. “My granda breeds racing pigeons, but he likes doves and such like too, by these are a pair of beauties” 

  
“Your Granda wouldn’t happen to want a pair of Turtle doves’ would he?” Harry asked hopefully and Seamus almost looked eager before shaking his head and rubbing the back of his neck with a sad frown saying;

“He would love them Harry, but he can’t have them, they are a part of your courting gift” 

  
“But what am I meant to do with them?” 

  
“Keep them as pets, you can return them after the twelve days if you don’t accept the court. But you should these are beautiful” 

  
“And their feathers are used in some very potent potions” Hermione said happily coming into the boy’s bedroom without a problem. “I’ve been wondering if they were going to be real birds or pot ones. They are beautiful Harry!” 

  
“Yeah, I get that but where am I going to keep them when I have to go back to the Dursleys?” Harry asked as the birds sang a surprisingly beautiful song. As he hadn’t been expecting anything more than cooing Harry had to admit to being shocked by the sound. Hermione looked away from the birds to ask in a surprised tone;

  
“Oh, so you’re thinking of accepting the courtship?”

  
“What? No!” Harry hissed he had already decided that, why the hell would he accept a weird courtship when he had no idea who the person was doing it. Yeah, Ron had said that it was his true love and all but what the hell did that mean? 

  
“Then, you won’t have to take them back to the Dursley’s in summer, will you? Just keep them for the twelve days and then give them back!” Hermione said it like it was the simplest thing in the world and Harry sighed guessing that it probably was when he thought about it. He was just starting to relax when the muggle born let out a happy laugh saying cheerfully “I can’t wait till tomorrow! Three French hens!” 

  
“I’m gonna have a farm by the end of this aren’t I?” 

  
“Or at the very least a petting zoo”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoy


	3. Chapter 3

  
On the third day of Christmas my true love gave to me...

  
“I think it’s safe to say they are French hens, mate” Ron laughed as Harry pulled the wrapping off an A3 sized painting of three hens in stripped tops, black berets, with French bread tucked under their wings. As it was a wizarding painting the French hens moved around in a stiff way their bodies unnatural in the stripped tops. Harry couldn’t really process everything that was going on in the painting but he had to admit he found it rather funny even if it was stereotyping an entire country. “Come on Harry! You have to admit its funny! At least your true love has a sense of humour...” 

  
“Aww its a pity it wasn’t real hens! You can’t start your petting zoo with only two doves” Hermione teased lightly coming to stand over him looking at the painting “But the painting it beautiful, look at the brush strokes!” 

  
“What you got there Potter?” Draco Malfoy’s clipped aristocratic voice floated through the great hall and Harry looked up sharply surprised that the Slytherin was still in school. Normally Malfoy left before all of the other students after all. “Hens? So, it’s true, Harry Potter is being courted? Aww how does it feel Potter?” 

  
“Annoying to be honest” Harry answered with a shrug though he had to admit he did rather like the Doves. They were like alarm clocks that morning waking him up exactly the time he had said he wanted to get up and the song they sang was beautiful much better than Ron singing off key when he showered. 

  
“Jealous Malfoy?” 

  
“Why would I be jealous? If I followed the rules of the courting I would be the one doing the courting not the other way around. Are you jealous, Weasel? Want some rich pureblood lord to sweep you off your feet?” Draco sneered his voice icy but somehow Harry could tell his heart wasn’t in it. The boy had lost a lot of his fight over the last year or two and Harry had found that his potions tended to explode less this year. 

  
“Well we can see why your parents don’t want you home for Christmas” 

  
“For your information, Granger my parents are due to arrive any minute. I was told to give you this Potter. It is an invitation to the Malfoy ball. As you are a Black you have a right to be there” Draco huffed taking out a cream coloured envelope from the depths of his robes. Harry accepted it slowly his fingers brushing against Draco’s as he did so. “The invitation includes your friends” Draco told him this with a scowl motioning to Ron and Hermione who both stayed silent with shock. “Well then, I bid you a very merry yule, Potter” 

  
“Draco” Harry said pointedly using his first name as he jerked his head in a bow the French hens forgotten as he watched Draco walk away the invitation heavy in his hands

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope this is okay


	4. Chapter 4

On the fourth day of Christmas my true love gave to me...

  
“These are black birds?” Harry asked looking at the black birds in the cage. They were thinner than the Doves sleeker with black shiny feathers that seemed to be almost blue when looked at in a certain light. Their eyes were bright blue and seemed to have the same intelligence as an owl. He had to admit that he had never known what a calling bird was since hearing the song and he wasn’t sure if he was disappointed or not that they seemed rather...Not what he was expecting. “They are just black birds right?” 

  
“Wrong! They are a Colly Bird! They are related to the black bird but...Harry these are super rare” Hermione hissed with all the excitement of a child on Christmas morning and Ron looked at his girlfriend with a genuinely surprised look on his face while Harry asked in confusion; 

  
“What’s a colly bird? I thought it was calling bird”

  
“Calling bird is in the modern version of the song but the real lyric is Colly bird...Colly is old English for coal, so yes most Muggles would have thought of them as black birds and they wouldn’t have found them interesting so changed it to Calling birds but Harry, Colly Birds were Slytherin’s choice for carrying mail instead of owls and some said that he used them as spies” Hermione said looking at the four birds in the cage who seemed to be rather uninterested in her or at the very least they turned their backs on her. “The last Colly birds in the wild vanished over a hundred years ago but they aren’t meant to be able to survive in captivity, they say it takes a great deal of dark magic. 

  
“So, you think my True love is a Slytherin? Who raises rare birds? Who do you think it is?” Harry asked looking to the empty Slytherin table almost missing a pair of grey eyes and blonde hair that would normally automatically turn to glare back at him. He shook his head quickly refusing to even finish that thought. He was not missing Draco Bloody Malfoy. Okay, Hogwarts was a little emptier without him and he did have nice eyes. 

  
“Please don’t say Malfoy!” Ron whined and Harry blinked almost afraid he had said the name out loud or something. 

  
“I wasn’t going to, he would rather chew his own arm off than court you” Hermione laughed airily “Even if the Malfoy’s have changed sides or whatever, they are still into the whole pure blood thing and I can’t imagine Draco raising birds like Colly birds or turtle doves, can you?”

  
“I dunno, would be pretty funny” Ron snorted but Harry, if he were honest, could imagine Draco looking after baby birds. Since Hagrid had been forced to leave the position of Care of Magical creatures and they had gotten a proper teacher Draco seemed to love the subject. He had even beaten Hermione in their last test. He didn’t say that out loud however and just looked at he birds wondering why he sort of liked the idea of it being Draco

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope this is okay

**Author's Note:**

> I hope that this is okay just a short drabble series


End file.
